I avoided my block, treated it like one big walk-through. I was looking for something or someplace entirely different. I set up my adventures elsewhere. But since everybody else, including the heroin fiends, stood on the block every day in the same spot doing the same things, it was impossible for them not to notice me moving around.
Over time people thought they knew me. The streets stay watching. But I didn’t take none of them for friends or acquaintances or bless ’em with any kind of real conversation. From time to time it would just be one of them doing the telling and me doing the listening and nodding. I had to keep track of the happenings one way or another as a form of defense of my fam.
It was only DeQuan who kept coming for me, trying to pull me into the fold of his fucked-up “community.” He kept track of all of the boys on the block, made them fight shit out, even hung a punching bag on a chain from the lamppost. He set up races and games, gave kids new names based on how they battled and competed and where they fit in because everything for him was about muscle, strength, competition, and dominance. He believed in “each one, teach one.”
He was a supplier. That’s how I saw him. I knew for now I needed him to reup on bullets, plus you never know. So I cooperated with him from time to time. I saw he took a liking to me, maybe because he bet on me a few times and won.
As far as I was concerned, I was at war with every boy, every teen, every man living or working on my block. I was either at war with them with my mind, my ideas and my beliefs, or my fists, my feet and my weapons.
I was sure about one thing. Our hoods were fucked up. Nobody could think or live straight. Everybody everywhere got guns cocked and loaded and one thousand reasons to shoot. I got my guns too. I don’t love them. But I need them.
6
UMMA
Umma is my heartbeat. I love her more than I love myself.
I care about what she thinks and has to say. Easily I would give my life to save hers. Yet every day I strive to stay alive because losing my life would kill her.
As Umma’s firstborn, and a son, we are closer than skin is to flesh. Without exchanging any words I know many of her thoughts. Her feelings are extremely intense. So sometimes I have to leave her presence to avoid being swallowed by them.
From age seven until now at fourteen, I’ve held her hand in mine and led her into America. I have translated everything she saw and heard. I’ve spoken for her in the offices of immigration, at the lawyer’s office, at the bank and realtors. Every day I had to pay close attention to everyone, what they were saying and doing in regards to my mother, and had to read and interpret documents they wanted her to sign that were even difficult for me to understand. Ours is a closeness that only a foreigner in a foreign land who cannot speak the common language might really understand. Still, our closeness is more.
Clearly I know the difference between a father, a husband, and a son. I wanted to be the best son possible, not only because my father said to do it; not only because I am her only son; but also because she deserved it and I love and respect her beyond anyone else.
Umma is the opposite of every female that I saw or knew so far in America. She doesn’t change her mind every few seconds, minutes, or months. She is steady. Her love and loyalty are forever. Her friendship is something you can count on. She is an amazing talent, while being so modest and down to earth. She is a young wife and mother, and an extremely attractive woman without conceit. She doesn’t need or want everyone to look at her or to give her compliments all day to feel all right about herself. She is an incredible cook, who fills every one of her dishes and pots at every meal, with love. After eating, you could feel the love growing in your belly and strengthening your body.
She is a hard worker but always pleasant. She is so smart, yet so unselfish. Even when she criticizes she is accurate but soft and always sweet. The best thing about her is her certainty. Her belief in and dedication to Allah is unshakable. You could see it in her every action every day, without her preaching a word of it. Her family is her life.
Umma’s love for my father is like radiation, something active and extreme that’s in each speck of the atmosphere every day. Since leaving the North Sudan, where Umma was born, raised, married, and gave birth, I do not mention her husband, my father, because mentioning missing him would set off a tidal wave of her emotions and desires and a typhoon of her tears that could only drown everyone and everything in its path. We live life like he is right here beside us in the United States.
We bow down and pray to Allah together at the same time each and every day.
When we first touched down at John F. Kennedy Airport in America, we were supposed to be received, cared for, and guided by one of my father’s American friends, his former roommate while studying at Columbia University. We were both surprised when he never showed up and never responded to our many phone calls. Especially after my father phoned him from the Sudan and told him, “I am sending my heart overseas. She is with my young son and carrying also my daughter in her womb.”
The roommate became permanently pressed in Umma’s mind as the symbol of an “American welcome,” and the measure of “American friendship.”
On our first day in New York, once we made it outside of JFK Airport in Queens, we took a taxi to New York City. We checked into a Midtown Manhattan hotel recommended by the cab driver. At the Parker Meridien, instantly we became familiar with the weight of the American dollar, as each night’s stay in our hotel room equaled a month of Sudanese dinars and high living.
At the concierge’s desk in the hotel lobby, I collected information and got a few answers to our questions, as well as a map of the city of New York, including all of its five boroughs and a subway guide.
For a month Umma and I lived in our hotel room trying to figure things out. We walked the streets and learned to ride the train together, making and carrying out our plans. It wasn’t long before Umma revealed that the shock of this new place, and the weird people and things we saw every day, were making her sicker than she was supposed to be in her third month of pregnancy.
On the train she would comment to me that the women in this country must all be in mourning, because they wore no henna on their hands. Back home women with undecorated hands and feet were either unmarried, uncelebrated, or widowed. Henna was a sign of happiness, good fortune, good health, good life, and beauty.
The train rides were a source of shock for her: singing beggars with either no legs or no arms or both, foul-mouthed youth who wouldn’t stand up and make room for elderly ladies or women traveling with babies and young children. Once there was this man in his thirties, drenched in the smell of cheap wine, who attempted to stand directly in front of where Umma sat before I moved him out of her way. The last straw was when a homeless man seated beside us turned out to be dead. Two young transit workers got onto the train, then stood around arguing over who was gonna clean up the pool of watery shit that filled his seat after his body was removed.
While shopping in the random fruit stores, Umma would say that the fruits here looked abnormal and strangely large. So many of the fresh tropical fruits she craved were missing from the midtown stores, like dates, guava, tamarind, and apricots.
In the supermarkets we checked out, she would say that the raw chicken looked bloated and swollen and unusually yellow, as if someone had intentionally painted them with an unnatural color. In the fish market she would recoil at the stinking smell, saying fresh fish has a distinctive scent but did not have a foul odor. Even the coffee served in the coffee shops was an insult to her. I guess this was not surprising since Sudanese coffee ranks as one of the best-tasting coffees prepared in the world.
Umma spit up even the New York drinking water, saying it was awful and tasted impure. I never doubted her words. On our estate, our water was drawn from our fresh water wells. Back home she picked fruits off our trees, plucked and pulled vegetables from our gardens and fields, crushed fresh coffee beans, fried them, and brewed everyone’s coffee. She
cooked incredible stews and baked fresh breads and was so accurate in her mixture and blend of spices that an invitation for dinner at our place was never turned down, but instead was met with great excitement and anticipation.
I knew and Umma impressed upon me that we had to find affordable housing and a comfortable living space before our monies dwindled down to nothing. So far we had spoken with many professionals who were all clear and specific about the money they wanted from us as payment. Yet they were cloudy and vague about what they would actually do to earn the money they were requesting and quick to add that they could not guarantee us any results. Umma sensed they were liars and cheaters under the banner of business. Most things we were left to figure out for ourselves.
The urgency pushed me to ask Umma to relax in the hotel room and venture out on my own. I listened as she recited a list of things she wanted and we needed. I put some of our money into my pocket. Then I left to go make it happen. In the evenings I would return and give her the items I had purchased. Also I gave her an update on some of the things that happened in my day, careful not to mention anything that would disturb or upset her or cause her to know how people here tried to boss and cheat a young kid as if I couldn’t count or think straight.
Brooklyn is where I discovered a row of Arab-owned stores, where the spices Umma cooked with back home were available for sale: cardamom, ginger, turmeric, coriander, cumin, cayenne, mustard seeds, fennel, and a host of hot peppers. There were dates, tamarinds, apricots, eggplant, okra, lentils, and chickpeas. There was an assortment of Middle Eastern and African flours, which she would use to prepare our breads. They even had a barrel of pumpkin seeds. I picked up a bag as a treat for Umma, who ate and enjoyed them back home from time to time.
When I brought my info and a few treats back to the hotel and spoke of the row of Arab-owned stores, a supermarket, a take-out falafel shop, a jewelry store, and the mosque, Umma wanted to see the places for herself.
She chose to explore the Brooklyn mosque first.
When we entered, an Arab man greeted me and ignored her. When I asked if we could make prayer, he welcomed me and pointed Umma toward a closed door, which led to a dark, damp basement area where women were designated to pray separately from the men. We were used to men and women praying separately in one space, women behind the men. We were not accustomed to males praying on one level, leaving the women down below. It was the cold winter season outside and colder in the dungeon. It was unsuitable for any woman, especially a pregnant one. He expected Umma to go down there alone. I grabbed her hand to escort her out of there.
Umma turned to the Arab man and, speaking in Arabic, stated, “Do you think that because you are in America that Allah cannot see you and what you are doing?” He seemed surprised that we spoke his language. He never answered her question though. As we left Umma said, “America, where Muslims play and do what they would never do back home.” Now she was content to keep our prayers privately. She never asked about the local mosques again.
Brooklyn was also the place where I discovered a bookstore that let me order books printed in Arabic. It was a rainy day. I was amazed at the unfamiliar combination of cold temperature and the freezing downpour of ice water onto my shoulders and back. I stepped under the canopy of one of the stores and stood shivering and facing a bookstore named The Open Mind, built on the triangular tip of two intersecting blocks. I shot across the street and entered a place with thousands of books for sale neatly arranged in a tight maze of tall shelves. Aside from the books, the place appeared to be empty.
As I looked around at the headings—Mysteries, Biographies, Hobbies, Adults Only, Entrepreneurs, Magazines, and Children’s—I was interrupted by a short Jewish man wearing wire-framed glasses and a mustache. He folded his arms across his chest like some adults do when they are trying to establish authority over a child. I didn’t respond to it because I didn’t look at him as a parent or guardian over me.
“No school today?” he asked. I ignored his question and treated him like a bookseller because that is what he was. If he was a good one, I was planning to be a book buyer.
“Do you have a book series called The Amazing Adventures of Akbar?” I asked. He repeated the name of the series aloud and scrunched up his face like he was trying to solve a difficult math problem. “I have a children’s section over there to the left. But I don’t believe I have ever heard of this series,” he admitted. “Thanks anyway.” I turned to leave. “Wait,” he said, calling behind me. “I can order the books for you if you’d like.”
I must have looked skeptical because he continued to try to convince me. “Ten days to two weeks. I’ll have them right here in my store for you,” he said. “Do you know the name of the author?”
“Yes, it’s Bashir Hussein. The series is written in Arabic,” I told him.
His face lit up. “Where are you from?” he asked.
“Where are you from?” I turned the question around on him.
“No, really,” he asked me again.
“I just came from the number two train,” I answered him.
He smiled, unfolded his arms, and threw up his hands saying, “Bravo! Okay, kid, you win. I see you’re a tough one. But you like books, so I like you. Come back in two weeks and I will have your series for you. If not, then I’m not Marty Bookbinder!” He held out his hand to me. I shook it.
Two weeks later when I returned to The Open Mind, I entered the store and walked around quietly, wondering how this guy survived in this business when I had yet to see him with a customer besides myself. I saw him shoot past me in the maze of shelves without acknowledging that I was standing there. I took that to mean he did not get the books I ordered and didn’t feel like facing me. I turned to walk out.
He shouted after me, “Hey, I have your series.”
Surprised, I turned back around and followed him to the section where he kept the new books shelved. Naturally I smiled as I saw volumes one through twenty-one of the series my father first chose for me right there in front of my face in this foreign land. “I’ll take volumes fifteen through twenty-one,” I told Marty.
“That’s seven books,” he said to me. I thought it was a dumb comment that implied I either did not know that already or could not count for myself. “Each book is seven-fifty,” he said.
I put my fifty-two dollars and fifty cents on the counter plus eight percent sales tax. “Put them in a bag, please,” I said.
“What about the other volumes?” he asked.
I picked up my bag and answered, “I read them already.” I left the store thinking of how much I hate to be underestimated.
“Wait a minute.” He followed me. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Maybe next time,” I told him.
“That’s an interesting name.” He laughed. “Listen, please come again. I’ll teach you how to play chess. Do you play chess?” he asked.
“Chess? Maybe next time,” I said again.
Down that same block, I found a friendly Jewish realtor. I explained to her that my mother didn’t speak any English, but we were looking for a place to stay. She was the one who eventually led Umma and me to the Brooklyn projects, into a three-bedroom apartment on the sixth floor. She showed it to us like it was the ideal place for the ideal price.
She charged us three months’ rent in advance. Somehow, only two months’ worth of the money we gave her counted. The third month’s rent, she said, was her fee for locating the apartment for us.
The bottom line was we were never suspicious that the realtor had led us into a hell reserved for poor Blacks. We didn’t know about the crime rate, the condition of African Americans, hostile policing, illegal drugs, welfare, food stamps, or Medicaid. All we knew was the monthly rental price was an amount that we could afford to pay without Umma having to work for the first year while she gave birth to and began breast-feeding and raising the baby, who my father assured us was a daughter.
With the keys to our new apartment in my hands, I
went in and scrubbed the walls, toilet, and tub with Dettol. I swept, washed, and waxed the floors in every room. I cleaned all of the windows. I taught myself how to use the stove and oven. I cleaned it out as well as the refrigerator. The job took so long to complete that I never made it back to the hotel where Umma was hand-washing and hang-drying her favorite cloths and packing our few belongings. She did not trust the hotel laundress to do the job.
I spent my first night alone in the apartment with the windows slightly open so the cold breeze would clear out the antiseptic smell of all of the detergents. On the hard, newly sparkling floor, I lay down and listened to the sounds and noises of elevator doors opening and closing, my neighbors walking, and children running through the hallways and even more milling in the streets.
Lying there with a view of a starless sky as black as ink, I thought about my Southern Sudanese grandfather. I had learned not to fear the darkness and the unknown spending summers side by side with the boys of his village. Learning and playing and training with more than twenty or so boys my same age gave me crazy confidence. When we would hear the sounds of the creatures of the night, we did not fear. They had a crew and we had a crew. We knew from watching the boys who were older than us that if we worked together, we would rule over the animals instead of them ruling over us. I felt extra secure in this village. After all, my own father was born and raised there, and my grandfather was the only man greater than him.
My grandfather taught me to see in the dark. Not just to look, but to see. He would sit so still in the dark of the African night. He was so black that only a trained eye could distinguish him from the atmosphere. So he would play on it. I would walk into his large hut. He would have the lamps off on purpose. I would move around feeling as though I was completely alone in there. Suddenly he would grab me with his rough hands. His deep voice would fill the room. When he would laugh at my foolishness in not being able to see him, only his white sparkling teeth would reveal his actual location. “What if I were the King Cobra?” he would ask with the threat animated in his voice. He played these games with me until I learned to pay attention, to see in the dark, to not bump into anything in my surroundings because I needed to form a mental picture of it.